Standardized Pest
I’ve spent the past two
years alternating between unfortunate workplaces and unemployment. While
everyone knows that the simplest and expected solution to this dilemma
is to return to school, I did not do so. I had plenty of reasons for staying
in the ‘real world’ but looking back, I don’t think
I was avoiding graduate school, I think I was avoiding the GRE.
Education Testing Services, the benevolent creators of the test, asks
pupils to give them $115 for the academic equivalent of rock climbing
without a rope. I had never (nor have I since) knowingly paid for a horrible
experience, and so, in a fashion that I considered entirely rational,
I put off graduate school because I was too much of a wuss to take a test.
But, after four months of being almost entirely unemployed, I began to
see the GRE in a different light. It was a light cast by a long string
of unfortunate job interviews, uncomfortable work situations, and unmentionable
money saving techniques. Finally, shunning my old discipline (chemistry)
in favor of a new one (writing) gave me the push I needed to sign up.
I acquired an outdated version of the Princeton Review’s ‘Cracking
the GRE’ which gave me stellar advice on par with “Don’t
smoke too much pot the night before the test.”
The book also provided a prodigious list of words that have begun to exit
the popular consciousness. I studied these and, taking the book’s
advice, used them to create memorable sentences such as “Though
Misti had been relegated to the undesirable oral scene she still she quaffed
the man's seed with what seemed to be great alacrity.”
On my test day I had done fabulously well on a practice test. I had eaten
a balanced breakfast of Grape Nuts and yogurt. I was dressed in layers,
so I could adjust to the climate. I even brought pencils. I was ridiculously
prepared.
The woman who would be administering our test that day was named Margaret.
She was big and smiled down on our shaky pale group with a kindness we
appreciated. She provided me with a piece of paper as I entered and said
“First you just have to copy this paragraph in script.”
“What do you mean by script”, I replied.
And she said, “y’know… cursive.”
Surrounded by at least a dozen other prospective graduate students, I
had to look right at this big, kind woman and say “I don’t
know how to write in cursive.” The book had told me nothing about
this.
Margaret convinced me there was no other way. I wiggled down into the
hard wooden seat and began the long process of reaching back to third
grade, which was the last time I had written anything besides my name
in cursive. My letters were harsh and improperly connected, and I was
the last person to finish, but I suppose I passed the cursive writing
exam, because Margaret let me into the testing room.
As I took the test the questions seemed to become progressively harder,
but in the new world of adaptive test taking, this is very good news.
If you answer a question correctly, they tell you, the next one will be
of a higher difficulty level. Nearing the end of the verbal section the
questions had become impossibly hard, and the words were entirely unfamiliar,
I had done well. As I exited that room, I felt like steamed broccoli.
I was wet, I was limp, but I also brighter and cleansed. I would never
have to take the GRE again.
I was exhausted as I exited, but so pleased to have done well enough that
I wouldn’t ever have to take it again that my smile was genuine,
and gigantic. Margaret said she knew I’d do well, because I didn’t
look nervous when I went in. I told her I had been nauseous for about
a week. “It’s not that I wasn’t nervous, I’d just
grown used to it”. She smiled and said, “I knew you’d
do well all the same.”
For a full year I wrote a weekly column for a daily paper in Boulder CO. I wrote about being young, poor and green, and the column was widely loved throughout the city. It remains one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.
If you've got some time on your hands...check 'em out.
Colder than the Hinges of Hell
Four More Ounces of Responsibility